Monday, July 4, 2011

The Commodore Amiga 1000, the first and most beautiful Amiga computer ever released, was -by far- the best micro of 1985; it did after all costs 1,500$. The A1000 came in an elegant case with a separate keyboard, sported 256k of RAM and -importantly- the signatures of the design team. You can find out more about it here, here and here.

What's more, US residents can grab a fully working, rather complete and in excellent condition A1000 via this Commodore Amiga 1000 auction. The computer comes with the Commodore 1080 monitor, its mouse, the original keyboard, the original manuals, all necessary leads and a ton of software, including the Workbench and Kickstart disks.

Couldn't agree more my friend. The A1000 is the most beautiful Amiga possible. Oh, and I once again envy you. Got to find some space and then nobody is stopping me from grabbing all those essential bits of hardware.

As for the side expantion, you could be right, but I frankly can't tell. Not quite sure whether its part of the auction, though I do believe so.

While I like the case design for the A1000, I never really cared for the odd port arrangement or the keyboard. I much preferred the later models like the A500, A3000, A4000 and A1200. I have a sot spot for the A600, which I've always felt was a cute little machine.

We got our first Amiga - an A500+ - in about 1992 and it was hugely advanced compared to the clunk 286's my school's computer lab had. And what a revelation after the rather limited power of the ZX Spectrum +2A we owned. It seemed the power of the Amiga was limitless in comparison.

At the same time, thanks to various Amiga mags giving away full programs on a 2nd floppy disc, we quickly built up a huge software library. Being able to write an essay in Protext, saving it on an MS DOS 720k floppy and then taking it to school to be printed was less like computing and more like some digital alchemy.

I'd never trade my A600 for this (heck, it fits my drawer perfectly!), but if you got some room to spare, a desktop Amiga is surely a fascinating item you definitely should have, and besides, a Commodore monitor is the way it's intended to be seen!

Don't get me wrong, the A1000 is a milestone in personal computers. The things it was capable of - even on an unexpanded machine - were jaw dropping compared to the much more primitive & expansive IBM PCs and early Apple Macs. It's a testament to the power of the Amiga that by the time of the A2000, one of the few computers that best it - a fully equipped the Apple Mac II - cost $10,000. Fives times as much as an A2000. Ludicrous.

And yet with all those advantages that the Amiga brought, Commodore still screwed it up. Not jut a little, but completely.

You're right that the A600 didn't bring in any new features, Gnome, which was a shame. But then again, it wasn't meant to as it was originally going to be the A300 -a low cost version of the A500+. In the end, it came out more expensive and so it was repositioned as a fully fledged replacement. And then was itself replaced with he A1200 soon after.

I'd have thought it was cheaper to can the A300/600 and stick with the 500+ rather than completely retool. Maybe a surface mount version of the 500+ motherboard could have been possible, but as ever with Commodore, the logical decisions seemed to be the ones last taken.

You are indeed correct dear Bob. Commodore did make some disastrous choices and a first gaming love is tough to forget. Then again, the Amiga CD32 was an excellent choice, that -had it more time available- could have saved the company.

Mind you, I still believe the A1000 was the most beautiful of the lot; design-wise I mean. It do believe it can only be compared to the original Macintosh in terms of sheer case beauty.

Oh, I quite agree the A1000 has a beautiful design Gnome. The subsequent German designed Amigas were a lot more... functional. Let's put it that way. And yes, there certainly is a feel of the original Apple Mac there, and even Apple models like the LC. (I think they were LC's - the ones that looked like pizza boxes anyway). I just find it odd they made such a great looking machine, and then stuck a lot of the the sockets on the side. Still, I suppose that's probably as much to do with the convoluted birth of the Amiga then a deliberate design choice. After all, they didn't even have the Kickstart Roms ready when the machine shipped, so it's quote possible that the port layout ended up as it did because there wasn't time to change it.

I tend to clench my fists and mutter unflattering things about Mhedi Ali when I think of the CD32 and how it could have saved CBM. It was a great machine, but it should have come out earlier - maybe before the A1200. Certianly by the time it did arrive, it was mostly getting ports of A1200 titles which didn't use the storage potential to it's fullest. And by the time they tried to sell it in the US, the stock was impounded until CBM could pay off some of it's massive tax bills. Which of course it couldn't. It did ship in Canada though, so US Amiga fans could always track one down from their northern neighbours.

And if I say nice things about Retro Treasures, it's cos I mean them. It's a great wee site & since discovering it,it's become a firm favourite with me. ;D

Once again I agree and am humbled. Thank you for the insight and kind words :)

As for the CD32 you are absolutely correct. The timing was a bit off, yet still -had Commodore being in a better financial situation- could have fared much better. The hardware was excellent and I even cared for the joypad.

Oh, and the slim pizza box Mac was indeed the LC. It was beautiful and could aesthetically even stand up to the Mac Classic.